The government has partially set aside the established procedure of monitoring utilisation and evaluation of development funds' by the Planning and Development (P&D) Division and authorised the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to exclusively release funds and keep the utilisation record of the PSDP additional allocation in 2007-08.
The National Economic Council (NEC) has allocated Rs 520 billion for the PSDP for the current fiscal. The government increased the allocation by Rs 23 billion without any demand by the Planning Commission. This amount has been allocated for other development expenditure and it would be utilised by the MoF without any formal demand from the P&D, sources told Business Recorder on Thursday.
The sources said that this is for the first time that P&D would have no role at all in the expenditure of a portion of the budgeted development funds in the current financial year.
It will be the discretion of the government to spend the money wherever it wants during the current fiscal, which is election year and some people believe that the government would spend the money on development schemes with political consideration to win votes in the general elections.
When contacted, spokesman for the Planning Commission, Mohammad Asif Sheikh declined to give any detail about the additional allocations. However, he confirmed that this amount would be utilised exclusively by the MoF.
He said that P&D would keep the utilisation record of Rs 485 billion as R35 billion in the budgeted PSDP of R520 billion has been earmarked for the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA). The total development outlay for the current fiscal is of Rs 747 billion as some autonomous organisations would spend Rs 204 billion outside the PSDP.
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